Guild Wars 2

A 3rd party tool can be used to automatically keep track of what events you’ve done by checking what zone you’re in, if the event is active and if you’re near it. I’m not sure if one exists, but I know it could be easily created. I know manual ones exist, where you have to click the event once you’ve completed it.

Regifter is the achievement you get when returning the present back to your base in Snowball Mayhem.

Files may also be streamed while loading if you have a partial dat file. If you add -image to a shortcut to GW2, the full dat file will be downloaded at once.

You could also add -maploadinfo to the shortcut to see what is taking so long to load.

Example shortcut target: “C:\Guild Wars 2\GW2.exe” -maploadinfo

The description of the collection expander used to say “bank collections” instead of just “collections” according to what was data mined. I guess they thought it was redundant though, since the tab in the bank is called “Collections”

It’s a pretty good upgrade if you’re a hoarder.

Tremain.4623:

At the rate the mats are tanking affording ascended armor won’t be much of a problem.

And then just when you thought the price was right… precursor crafting is revealed to cost… stuff.

A few months ago, they talked about repeat events and how they would use them as just that. The main content is already there so it gives them time to work on bigger projects.

According to the recent living story update, which I expect to be an exaggeration, the finale of the Scarlet arc is supposed to be big. What it basically comes down to is, would you rather have them spend a few months to improve Wintersday, improve the living story, or work on expansion-esque content. (they chose the last two)

A while ago, people claimed that there was a bloating issue with local.dat which could increase load times. Although some said deleting the file sped up their load times, others said it didn’t change anything.

local.dat has been moved around. It used to be in the Guild Wars 2 folder under Documents (where your screenshots are located), but it seems to now be located under:

%appdata%/Guild Wars 2/

Over time, as more content is added to the game, the size of GW2.dat can also bloat. The only way to fix this however is by fully redownloading the game. Hard drive fragmentation can also play a factor, but ever since Vista, Windows has kept disks mostly defragmented.

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Testing load times between my SSD and HDD, loading in to the bank in LA takes roughly 16s on the SSD and 20s on the HDD.

When they first implemented agony, they stated that agony resistance would only be obtainable through fractals. Considering the only infusible items involve fractals, I think it’s intended. You could say the act of infusing itself involves fractals, but maybe they don’t see it that way, even though the only difference is 1 vial. The other non fractal related ascended back piece, the karka shell, is also not infusible.

Assuming you have a bad case of lag (800+ms spikes), the second video looks like fall damage. Once you take fall damage, as long as you continue to move without pausing, you will continue taking fall damage on every step. This is why you can instantly die when running down stairs.

Basically, the server thinks you didn’t make the jump and fell. Your client then tells the server you made the jump, which results in you falling from where the server thinks you are and where your client said you are. When your client doesn’t tell the server fast enough, this results in the server thinking you fell too far, causing you to get teleported back to the start.

cranked.3812:

Healix.5819:

Zanshin.5379:

Sometimes they will even insult you if you want to play like you’re supposed to.

Without taunting them in chat, get them to continue whining. After they’ve said something good (anything racist or anti-LGBT will usually do it), silently report them. Have fun knowing they’ll receive a 72 hour suspension.

Yeah let’s encourage people to antagonize others further and then try to get them suspended after goating them into it.

Stay classy San Diego.

Since I said to not taunt them in chat, which means continuing to play normally, the way it’s meant to played…

You’re promoting griefing.

Reporting players for griefing these activities is what you could do, but since ArenaNet doesn’t have the resources to handle this type of report, they aren’t even looked at, and even if they were, it’s far too late. Reporting for language/harassment however is something that doesn’t fade with time and requires only a quick look at the chat logs. If what they say is serious enough, a 72 hour suspension is almost guaranteed.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Filler content, eh? You mean like the poorly disguised kill this, gather that quests…oh excuse me, hearts? Of course, you can bypass all that by just paying money and leveling with crafting.

Hearts (and scouts) were added late into development because they found that players from traditional MMOs were too conditioned to figure out how to explore. Unlike the filler quests, hearts are not required to continue the main story.

Zanshin.5379:

Sometimes they will even insult you if you want to play like you’re supposed to.

Without taunting them in chat, get them to continue whining. After they’ve said something good (anything racist or anti-LGBT will usually do it), silently report them. Have fun knowing they’ll receive a 72 hour suspension.

Wait 4 months and try again.

Togashi Jack.9531:

Daily and Monthly categories have a running countdown timer at the top, would it be so difficult for them to implement just such a countdown timer on living story categories as well?

The living world is meant to be dynamic. The only reason it lasts 2 weeks is because they can’t create content that fast and the players complain because they’re not able to participate.

If they had unlimited resources, anything could happen. Take the tower of nightmares for example. They could have easily said the players destroyed it only after a few days and progressed it to what it is now.

As it is now, we all know it’s going to end in 2 weeks. The only reason to not have a 2 week timer is to keep up the illusion that it’s dynamic and anything could happen.

They wouldn’t officially allow you to license the use of Guild Wars because they wouldn’t want to take the risk in allowing you to officially tarnish their name. Garbage is garbage, but garbage with a seal of approval is now their problem, if you know what I mean. If you were a reputable company, then maybe, or if you made a quality product and then showed it to them, they might allow it, but with restrictions.

If you want to make a non profit game, they usually don’t have anything against that. It’s when you become too popular and/or begin to direct bad attention that they care.

If you want to be similar to Guild Wars, using the Star Wars example, simply do something like calling it Galaxy Battles, while featuring the main characters Vuke and Lader wielding their trusty light swords.

I just started playing the event yesterday, and after a few games, I was suspicious of gear being a factor or that the scout was nerfed compared to last year. Last year I remember being able to take out anyone using a combo of the a full length snipe shot and a few attacks. This year however, I’ve seen a full length snipe hit for under 50% of someone’s health and have even had it hit for only 4000 damage (10k usually). Rapid fire also greatly annoys me, since it fully misses what seems like 90% of the time and if I get to close, it shoots right through my target as if they’re not there.

I didn’t fully test everything, but it seems like stats from traits, runes and sigils don’t have any effect. The amulet however does, but any stats that modify your damage doesn’t seem to apply. I’m guessing your armor rating matters, which explains why some people take less damage than others, even though they’re the same class (ie, heavy gunner). I’ve also heard that certain traits apply to some of the skills.

The other odd thing I’ve seen is I was doing a 1vs1 with a heavy gunner who suddenly started healing for like 5% every second once they got below 10% health. Considering there were no pickups or other players around, I’m guessing something else is also a factor.

Doing this as an elementalist, I only had 13k health.

Freeelancer.2860:

IDK about hitpoints, but the point of the game is to bring present back to the base, and scout is both better present carrier and interceptor.

And a supporter is a far better interceptor and runner because icy ground forces the carrier to drop the present. Just run in and steal it. If anyone follows, drop the present and do it again, or place a wall, or heal yourself. All the scout can really do is stealth and pick it up, which can be good, but overall, it’s not.

He probably meant ascended gear, but there technically is more uses for the stuff now, since the endless Wintersday tonics use them and so did some of the toxic recipes. Since the next patch won’t be until late January, the next 4 patches will be story focused and finally, the patch after that will be feature-only. I’d guess that these items won’t have any other uses for another ~3 months at least. I’ve also held off on deleting them because of his statement, but now I’ll be forced to simply because there’s too much of it. Another 3 months is like 30 more stacks, and that’s just from doing 2 events a day.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

That “We don’t want players to grind part” oh my, I cant stop laughing right now, hahaha….. that’s just sad :’(

The funny thing about the manifesto is, it’s still true today. All the complaints about it are when you take the points they made out of context. People would understand it better if they saw the actual full length interviews, rather than the point form notes of the manifesto.

The no grind statement is one of the most commonly misunderstood points and it is directly referencing other MMOs. He’s referring to having to grind filler content (aka kill 10 rats) to experience the actual fun content (aka main story quests) and then switches to talking about the grind of combat due to the usual style of sit there while you auto attack, whereas GW2 is action oriented. The same can technically happen in GW2, but you have to forcibly do it. Anyone that has ever played an MMO like WoW would probably understand.

It should be assumed that all living stories will go away after 13 days. Any extra time after that is just a bonus and should not be relied on.

For Boss Week, they specifically stated that the name was just a reference and not how long it was going to last.

If you want to do everything in a zone, don’t craft. By doing zone completion, you’ll keep up with the personal story and eventually surpass it. You’ll reach 80 about 1/2 way through the game.

If you don’t want to do zone completion, you’ll need to rely on crafting or doing alternate areas, such as the starting zones for other races. If you don’t, you won’t be able to keep up with the personal story and always find yourself behind.

If you craft and do zone completion, you’ll reach 80 around reaching the level 40 zone, assuming you follow the personal story.

The combat log would never be a part of the API since it would be very inefficient and a waste of resources. They could push the data to you in real time as an always connected data stream, but even then it would be redundant since that data is already sent to your client.

If they were going to allow DPS meters, they would simply allow writing the combat log to a text file. The combat log would have to be improved first though, which is something I doubt will ever happen.

Daily achievements. Today was playing bell choir.

Try using a virtual keyboard (Windows On-Screen Keyboard).

You can also try pressing Alt+48 (using the numpad)

The pickup tab can only show a certain amount of items, so if you have anything to pickup, do so until it’s empty.

You could always open a PayPal account and transfer money from a bank account or get a prepaid credit card and use it for online purchases, only filling it when needed.

One does not simply kill Scarlet. The tower was simply a test. The toxin was just a side effect. After failing to deal the final blow during the finale, Scarlet is forced to prematurely fuse with her plant-like creation to become a dragon-level threat. Fear not, she was incapable of taking control and her individuality was lost.

You wanted a new dragon to appear? Prepare for the red one.

Progression through infusions is something they’ve already said will happen. For now you should assume that they will eventually add masterwork infusions with slightly better stats and then rare ones and so on, until ascended is finally reached.

Ascended runes and sigils are more likely than not, since it’s something that can easily be implemented. The useless exotic rune/sigil market will explode however, assuming these sigils can be forged. I would expect them to only be crafted or come as drops however.

Although ascended gear might only be x% better now, assume it will get slightly better every year. This will eventually probably top out at a difference of something like rares vs exotics, rather than the minor difference per piece it is now. Basically, in a year, you will notice a difference, but it’s not really required for anything.

Ascended cooking and jewel crafting is coming, which will probably takes 3-6 months to roll out, meaning no gear progression over that time. Around 3-6 months after this is when you should have a better idea as to what direction the game is going in.

A level cap increase is also a possibility, which you can assume will reset everyone back to basic gear. Don’t expect this to happen for several years though, 1 at the very least. You’ll probably know when odds are this is likely to happen, since something major will go along with it and any current progression will likely have been halted for the last 6-12 months.

They also have plans for legendary gear, which they may or may not try to fake as progression. If they did, they could easily do no progression for a year and roll this out just like they did ascended gear. They could do trinkets one year then armor the next.

Remember, they want a sense of progression over time but with a minimal power increase, so expect something to happen probably every 6 months at least. Assuming you participate in events and/or general PvE, you should easily be able to collect the resources needed to obtain ascended gear, or even get it as drops, before the end of the year (2014), which is when I assume it will become more of a noticeable upgrade.

They might also drop the thought of vertical progression altogether, but judging by the fact that I’m seeing a zerg at every crafting station right now, I’m guessing the community is more for it, or neutral, rather than against it.

It’s something that will happen in the future. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/player-vs-player-rewards-roadmap/

Considering after the Scarlet story arc is complete, they’re going to have an update containing only features, expect stuff like this to happen then. Won’t be until around April though.

If you buy a gift for someone, you get the option to buy that same item for 40% off. It’s not unlimited.

“My promotions manager would like me to clarify that this is a one-for-one basis. If you send the same gift to three friends at once, your next three personal purchases of that item will be discounted by 40%.”

On the bright side, by the end of Wintersday, I’m going to have enough charged quartz and snowflakes to level all crafts without using another T6 material again.

That’s the daily activity NPC and Sanctum Sprint has been on the rotation of activities ever since Zephyr Sanctum left. The chest does not drop the back skin.

You get healed at the first checkpoint, right before the popping presents.

They already have plans to remove the difference between PvE and PvP clothes, allowing you to wear your PvE gear in PvP and vice versa.

Gifts:

Following the dolyak zerg, the only activity that requires 0 effort, is the most rewarding source of presents? What? The event is also constantly active, x2. Of course this won’t be true in a couple of days however.

Monitoring is allowed because they’ve officially ok’d it because of gw2spidy.

Buying and selling is something they have neither allowed nor disallowed. In order to stop it, they would have to remake the trading post to not be a website. You could say they allow it because they can’t not allow it.

There is nothing wrong with using an app to use the trading post. I think your actual complaint is why do they allow “botting” the trading post. Using a bot to spam buy/sell orders/listings isn’t exactly safe. No actual player will be able to place 1000 orders in a second, and this can be easily detected on their side, but doing so is also going to have a performance cost. Unlike actual bots, these bots are a gold sink and do the reverse by causing prices to rise, rather than fall. Additionally, if it wasn’t a bot doing it, it would just be one of the many thousands of players that are already doing it. So the question is, should they bother trying to catch bots when stopping them would result in nothing changing at a cost of performance?

If they did implement anti-botting, which I imagine would be very similar to their anti-spam, expect to see “you have bought/listed too many items recently”

A lot of stuff is already known, plus the patch isn’t out and everyone knows the notes always come shortly after the patch does.

They’re taking a break from the living story. The patch after the finale of the Scarlet arc will include features, rather than introducing a new story. For example, ascended gear and the LFG tool were features. Imagine stuff like that but in one big patch instead of what they have been doing – a little bit at a time.

Monitoring is something they’ve allowed. They’ve even advertised gw2spidy multiple times. Simply monitoring doesn’t require you to be logged in, or even have an account.

Buying and selling can only be done when logged in. Selling can only be done through the client, but that doesn’t mean a 3rd party program can’t do it.

The GW2 extended experience probably would have featured a trading post app, since it would have been so easy to make. It is after all just a website. The project was dropped though and the community is now in charge of making that type of app, something which ArenaNet has said they like to see. One day they’ll probably add to and make the trading post API official, which will allow an actual, fully functional trading post app to be created.

To be perfectly fair, lag can be a major issue in the bell choir. Last year I remember notes not playing at all, pausing or all falling at the same time, as if you’re meant to press all the keys at once. Once you’ve mastered it however, it doesn’t matter.

People with legendaries, usually black dye, and cosmetic’d out, playing with the general skill level of someone that has ebayed their account is quite funny though. I’ve always just assumed they’ve never left the comfort of the zerg.

It became Tuesday as of ~4 hours ago (their time zone). Considering they were still there a couple of hours ago, I’m guessing they were removed around 12 AM.

For vertical progression, upgrades are next. Specifically, they talked about infusions, but ascended level runes and sigils will probably also happen at some point. After that, they’ll probably increase the level cap to start the process all over again.

When they released ascended gear, they said it would happen over the course of a year and that they wanted a slight vertical progression curve. Expect there to be something new every year and if there isn’t, they’ve either quit, or an expansion is coming the next year.

Legendary gear is going to happen. They’ve already said it’s coming and will probably start with accessories.

A long time ago, they recommended contacting support with the date, time and screenshot for proof, but I don’t think they do that anymore.

You can report them for griefing in-game, but with no description of the situation, I really can’t see how they’d figure it out themselves.

The funniest part about the clock tower was watching people fail. Personally, I never had a problem with big characters and simply assumed those that did were just making excuses for their own shortcomings. We all know how the majority doesn’t want to put in any ounce of effort and some think they simply deserve it. Even the designer of the clock tower was surprised last year with how many people completed it, meaning it wasn’t designed to be completed by everyone.

The wintersday puzzle just wasn’t the same for me. It was far more casual in comparison and as a result, less interesting. I mostly did choir bells and really hope there’s some new songs for it.

If they’re going to make it so you don’t have to wait in between attempts, does that mean for everyone, or only those who fail. Take Sanctum Sprint for example. Why am I forced to AFK at the end for 4 minutes when I could run it at least 1 more time. If I’m capable of doing something twice as fast, I want to be able to, without quitting and joining. — just saw the stream, which looks like you’ll be able to loop run it, though I imagine the popping presents may become an issue if a group is just ahead of you. A lot better than the ~2 minute wait when finishing the clock tower.

Siphaed.9235:

I must basically ask, as a player, “Why should I purchase Gem Store cloths when I cannot wear them in the holiday events?” You should have your financial people look at that question and have them demand you swap it back to PvE instead of PvP basically because you’re losing money on this swap. Just throwing that out there, based on my own perspective….

They already have plans to remove the distinction between PvP and PvE gear. PvE gear will be useable in PvP and vice versa.

The PvP format is used for activities as a blanket removal for unintended things found in PvE which people use to get an advantage. Class abilities still work however, so the system isn’t perfect.

Rann.7198:

Ya, no one was able to get a weapon in a single day.

Lucky people could.

By… not spending them?

Also, when ascended jewel crafting comes out, odds are you’ll be able to craft them.

A little while ago, one of the devs said not to delete ascended materials (like bloodstone dust), because it was going to be used soon. Since there’s no news about anything new, maybe armor takes like 10x the requirements of those materials, but probably not.

… I really need to get rid of the ~10k dragonite I have.

EU servers are hosted in Frankfurt, while NA servers are in Texas.

Doing a quick little ping test should give you a rough idea as to which one would be faster. Open a command prompt (Windows Key+R, type cmd and click ok, or start menu search it). In the command prompt window, do the following:

For EU, copy/paste the following line (right click the window to paste) and press enter:
ping 206.127.159.1 -n 10

For NA do:
ping 64.25.33.1 -n 10

(Change the -n 10 to however big you want your sample size to be. Something like 100 would better account for packet loss)

Whichever one has a lower average ping is better, though if they’re roughly equivalent, it won’t matter. If they are roughly equivalent, but one is more stable (less deviation), then that one is better.

To do a more general test on your internet connection, you can try http://www.pingtest.net/ and select the Texas and Frankfurt servers. Note that this will only test your general connection to that area and may not be an accurate representation of what your connection to the GW2 servers would be.

Bots reached level 80 in there a long time ago, back when the centaurs commonly dropped loot bags.

lordkrall.7241:

There is however nothing that suggest that the infusions will actually increase your stats and that they could simply just be Fractal specific (such as the new “unlimited” Agony Resist Infusion).

They’ve said they wanted a slight vertical progression curve. Unless they want that to only apply to fractals, infusions are likely to see a stat increase over time. I imagine it would be fairly negligible compared to the difference between exotics and ascended.

Fractals are tuned to the raid-like progression crowd and just increasing agony resists could be enough, but then the only carrot of fractals is the leaderboards. Would that be capable of solely keeping those wanting progression happy? Probably not. Also considering that a level cap increase is something they’re not against, meaning new gear again, I’d wager they’d also be willing to add a minor stat upgrade, just to give the players something to (constantly) work towards. They might not even be stats, but rather content specific stats, such as how the WvW infusions cause you to deal extra damage to guards. That could potentially only make it worse however due to the need of several sets, assuming you cared.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I agree that WvW is designed to be unfair, but adding more grind-based elements to widen the disparity further between “those who have more time to grind” vs “those who have more real life responsibilities and lesser time to grind” is still upsetting

Personally, I don’t see ascended gear as a grind, because rather than obtaining it as quickly as possible, I just build up the materials required. So what if I’m a month or two, or thee late. They are meant to be medium term goals after all. Any materials I don’t naturally obtain, I just buy with the other resources I do.

The carrot of ascended is the stats, but it’s designed to only apply to those who like stat progression. If you’re a casual kind of player (not min/maxer), ascended is pointless. WvWers have a little reason to complain about it, but WvW was designed to be unfair and who is really going to come into a situation where random group vs random group, ascended made the difference.

They have plans of adding progression through infusion slots, so although ascended gear might only be x% better now, expect it to be y% better next year and even more the year after that. Ascended runes and sigils will probably come at some point also.

There were actually plans to add a profession filter, allowing you to filter for example armor by “Warrior” rather than “Heavy”. Although the display for it is there, just hidden, the code for it was probably never implemented due the TP not knowing the specifics of items.

Since they have an item’s API, you’d think they would have implemented these extra features. However, doing so would only further slow down the trading post, which may or may not be something they are able to handle.

Maybe one day they will make the TP officially moddable, since this feature and a whole lot more is already possible. It is just a website after all, and it is possible to make your own.